Before I sprained my ankle we’d been planning all sorts of side trips on the Macclesfield Canal. Our journey from Marple to Kidsgrove was going to be our last chance (for now at any rate) to accomplish any of them! We picked out three of the places we haven’t visited – White Nancy, Mow Cop and Little Moreton Hall.

We managed the first of these last Thursday when we climbed Kerridge Hill above Bollington to see White Nancy, a monument built in 1817 to commemorate Wellington’s victory at the Battle of Waterloo. We took Elaine and Paul’s directions and climbed up the steepest path knowing that there was an easier way down. I’m much happier to climb up steep slopes than I am to try to slide my way down them! The views were incredible. On a cloudy but clear day we managed to see as far as the wind farm on Scout Moor north of Rochdale, Fiddler’s Ferry power station near Warrington and behind that the mountains in the north of Wales – incredible!

When we got back we managed to have a beer with Paul in the Spinners….

….and have a look back at the hill we’d climbed from the other side of the valley.

On Saturday we got slightly lost when following Sharon and Richard’s directions to get to the top of Mow Cop through Hanging Wood. Good directions just poor navigation. It meant a bit of a bit of a longer walk but we managed it in the end. Again amazing views but it was a lot mistier so not so dramatic.

It was mizzling by the time we got to the top to have a look at the Old Man O’Mow, a sixty five foot rock which sits in an abandoned quarry, and Mow Cop Castle, a folly built as a summerhouse of all things!

Today was our last day on the ‘Macc’ for a while and our last chance to use the Little Moreton Hall tickets we’d bought at the auction in New Mills last week. It’s an incredible moated Tudor Manor House only a mile or so across the fields from the moorings under Mow Cop. As long as you can cope with cows and mud you should be fine!

Apparently the lop sided look of the building was caused when the weight of the long gallery which was added at the top of the building in the late 1500s proved too much for the foundations.

The National Trust own it and have put in re-enforcement to stabilise the building but it’s a miracle that it managed to stay upright for over 500 years before this was done. Allegedly the only true vertical in the house is the fireplace in the upper parlour just off the long gallery and it’s made to look lop sided by its surroundings!

There were some things that we missed out on due to my enforced inactivity but I reckon the stuff we did choose to do proved to be the pick of the bunch.